


Bright blue

by sdlucly



Series: The Pancake Mix [2]
Category: The OC (TV)
Genre: Closer to pre-slash, Future Fic, If you're Seth, M/M, college fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 19:02:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16792885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdlucly/pseuds/sdlucly
Summary: Berkeley is bright and warm--





	Bright blue

Berkeley is bright and warm, the afternoon moving like in slow motion. Seth leans forward on the kitchen counter, eyes glued to the backyard.

He can see Ryan playing with Sophie, running around after her and picking her up and twirling her around over his head, like she's a feather in his fingers. He swallows, fingers intertwining, and presses his nose against his thumbs.

Matt is in the backyard as well, standing to the side, watching Ryan with eyes filled with something Seth refuses to put a name to.

Seth closes his eyes briefly, bites on his lower lip. He can't stop thinking about that afternoon.

It had been so stupid. Who the hell had told Seth jumping onto a plane was a good idea? When is it ever a good idea?

He'd thought a surprise visit to Ryan's dorm room would fix everything. He'd been so wrong.

Ryan's laughter makes Seth open his eyes. Ryan is walking back into the house, Sophie's little hand clasped in his own. But even as Ryan lets Sophie pull him to the den, Ryan looks over his shoulder. At him. At Matthew.

Seth swallows, lowering his eyes at the warmth in Ryan's gaze.

*****

Seth stares down at his plate. Lasagna, his mom's best recipe. He can hear his mom laughing at some silly story Matthew has told -- Matthew, please, I really don't like to be called Matt; except when Ryan calls him Matty, of course, like Seth hasn't noticed -- and his dad totally agrees on something else, something about the politics or one international dilemma or something just as insane because of course Matthew knows national politics and international politics and everything there is to know about the world at large. 

He looks up just in time to see Ryan tilt his head to the side, a soft curl of his lips upward, his whole face... softening as he looks at Matthew.

Seth thinks he used to be on the receiving end of one of those looks, not so long ago.

He lets out a breath as he glares down at his plate. The back of his eyes sting and he thinks he might be coming down with a cold.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Ryan's hand lying next to Matthew's on the table, Ryan's pinky reaching out to brush against the side of Matthew's hand.

Seth swallows.

"Dayan!"

Sophie's demand makes him look up. Sophie's sitting on Ryan's lap, Ryan's own plate of lasagna growing cold before him. Sophie has her head tilted back, eyes narrowed as she looks up at her big brother. Ryan smiles down at her and picks up her fork again, feeding her. She hasn't let Ryan out of her sight the whole afternoon.

He kisses the top of her head, and Sophie seems to let it go, whatever it was. Seth blinks and watches his family and Matthew sitting there, by Ryan's left side.

He looks down at his plate and pushes it away. He's not hungry anymore.

*****

Seth's leaning against the couch, one eye on the TV and the other seeing the way Ryan walks Matthew to the door. Matthew has an apartment by the campus and though he could spend Saturday afternoon sucking up to his _boyfriend's_ \-- the word make something churn inside Seth -- parents, he said he had to head back because he had a paper to finish.

Geology student. A senior, when both Ryan and him are juniors. And yet Matthew is their age, because they took a sabbatical year before starting college.

He watches without really watching, the way Matthew takes Ryan's hand in his, and how their shoulders brush with each step they take. Ryan chuckles, something Matthew must have said -- Seth has heard Ryan laugh more in the past four hours than in the past two years, and that makes something else tighten in his chest -- before being pulled out of the house by Matthew.

Seth pushes away from the living room, moves to the dining room and tries to be as stealth as he can be as he pushes the curtains open, just enough to see Ryan and Matthew kiss, softly, tenderly, like long time lovers do, as they stand next to Matthew's car. They share a few more words that Seth can't hear, and God, it's in times like this that he wishes he had learned how to lip read, before they pull away. Ryan nods, stares at Matthew as he gets into his car. Matthew blows Ryan a kiss as he closes the driver's door. Ryan laughs, but kisses the air as well, in a move so childish and so... so free that Seth can't help but grimace.

Someone nudges Seth and Seth looks over his shoulder at his dad, pulling the curtain a bit wider, watching Matthew start the engine. Ryan stands by the driveway for a minute as the car pulls away.

"Matthew, he's really good for Ryan."

Seth swallows at his dad's words. He doesn't know why he's dad is saying this. Doesn't want to know why his dad is saying it.

"I don't think I've seen Ryan this happy since... God, I don't think I've seen him this happy ever."

Seth's hand curls tighter around the edge of the curtain.

His dad pats him on the shoulder. "Try to give the guy a chance, Seth."

Seth glances over his shoulder, at his dad making his way back to the living room. His mom is nodding off, Sophie already down in her bedroom, after two stories by her favorite big brother.

By the time Ryan walks into the living room, Seth is sitting on his mom's other side, watching the news.

*****

Seth's sitting on his bed, in the bedroom he and Ryan share. Ryan's in the bathroom, changing into shorts because even if it's only February, Berkeley is warmer than Seth remembers it.

He thinks about the words he wants to say, the questions he has burning in his throat. And then he remembers Ryan, laughing and smiling and ...and they all get choked up in his throat.

Ryan walks back into the bedroom, says, "Want me to kill the light?"

Seth nods, and when they are in nothing but darkness and as his eyes are starting to become accustomed to it, he whispers, "Matthew...he seems like a nice guy."

Silence answers him.

Seth closes his eyes. His feet are growing cold on the wooden floor. He should ask his mom for a carpet.

"He is."

Seth lowers his head. It had seemed like a nice idea, coming home for a weekend when he actually doesn't have ten papers to turn in next week. He had told his mom in advance, so she could tell Ryan.

Seth just hadn't expected that Ryan would take advantage of that and introduce him to Matthew.

And he hadn't expected that his parents already knew him. Apparently, this was the third time he joined Ryan for a Saturday afternoon at home.

"I..." Ryan starts, and the darkness is enough to hide his face from Seth, though he fears he wouldn't be able to read much into Ryan's expression now. "I didn't mean to spring it on you like that."

It wasn't that much of a surprise, actually, but Ryan doesn't know that. 

"It's okay."

He thinks he should say more but... but he has no idea what that is.

He thinks the words, "it looks like he really cares about you" form in his mind, but they die on their way to his tongue. He doesn't mean them, anyway.

"He really is a great guy," Ryan says, and when Seth looks up, Ryan's sitting on his own bed, opposite Seth's, looking right at him.

Seth nods, lowers his gaze once again. He stands up, pushes back the covers. He crawls inside and hears Ryan doing the same.

He lies on his side with his back to Ryan.

They don't say anything else.

Seth can't stop himself from thinking that Matthew probably is a great guy, if only he'd exchanged more than hello with the guy. If only he cared enough to do so.

*****

_Seth stands outside of Ryan's dorm room door. He checks the dorm room number with the piece of paper in his hands and yes, this is it. He stands here and he can't help but grin, bounce a little on his feet. His satchel is thrown across his chest, and his free hand reaches for the strap._

_He takes in a deep breath and it's then that he hears it: Ryan's laughter. It might have been months since he last heard it -- difficult to hear Ryan laughing when Seth's on the other side of the country, and the most they do is send each other seldom emails -- but he could recognize that sound anywhere, anytime._

_He smiles, because Ryan's laughter will always do that to him. Seth can't not smile, when Ryan laughs like that, happy and carefree._

_And then he hears another sound. A deeper sound. Another laugh, another voice. And then a moan. Not Ryan. And then a chuckle, Ryan this time, and a whimper, Ryan again._

_It's like the air has been punched out of him._

_Seth hears them laugh, and then moan, and he stands there, frozen, and it takes his brain a minute to make the right connections between Ryan's voice and another very male voice, the chuckles and the moans. Seth shakes his head, takes a step back. It can't...it can't be..._

_He thinks he might throw up._

_He turns around and staggers out of the building._

_He stops outside Ryan's building, and he thinks insanely that they could probably see him from Ryan's window, if they were to look at the window... if they were to..._

_His falls onto the concrete steps, his legs giving up under him._

_Ryan... with... with someone... with a guy someone and oh my God have I been so stupid how could I not know how could I not know why did I ever think this was a good idea I could have knocked I could have walked in on them and oh my God what am I still doing here!_

_It takes him another minute for his brain to tell his legs to work, for him to stand up. He gets onto a plane back to Providence not an hour later._


End file.
